docwebster | Why do I care about same sex marriage?

Feel free to crosspost and spread at will.

Besides the idiocy of these reasons, of course, why do I care about same sex marriage?

"Marriage is a very important part of our culture and of our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society we ought to aim for the ideal and the ideal is that marriage should and ought to be the union of a man and a woman and we cannot allow activist judges to over turn that, we cannot allow activist local elected officials to thumb their nose at 5,000 years of human history and determine that marriage is something else and the people have a right to be involved" (Karl Rove).

"Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery to black beasts will bring this nation to a fatal conflict" (Gilmore, 1975, p.108)

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix" (from Loving v. Virginia)

In the wisdom of the Supreme Court (with my insertions):
"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial[sexual orientation/gender] classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial[sexual orientation/gender] discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another[same] race[gender] resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

And that is why I care. Because even though the fight against anti-miscegenation laws has been won (oh let's see.... Alabama only repealed their law in 2000!!!!), Martin Niemöller's poem has taught me that we all need to speak out for each other.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

(snagged from